A false awakening is an ultra vivid dream in which you dream of waking up. It can be so vivid it has the essence of a lucid dream in terms of visual intensity. However, unlike a lucid dream, you don't know you're dreaming, and that can stop you from performing a reality check or otherwise trying to take control of or explore the dream environment.

My weirdest false awakening happened a while back at my old house. I woke up in my usual bedroom (though false awakenings can involve dreaming of waking up in ANY place; waking up in an old bedroom is an instant giveaway). I got out of bed and began walking round the room... the curtains were open which was not right, and I began to question my reality.

So I did a reality check. I pushed my hand at the glass window expecting it to pass right through if this was indeed a dream. But instead, it just bounced off and the glass made a loud thud. The whole thing was as realistic as if I were doing it in real life. That was confusing. So I sat by the window for a minute or two, and kept trying to push my hand through the glass. Something in my head told me I was dreaming but I couldn't quite trigger that knowledge or the consciousness that would lead to my full lucidity.

I got frustrated, trapped in my little loop of logic. If I was dreaming, why did my hand keep bouncing off the cold glass window? And if I was awake, why did I have that feeling of being trapped in a "bubble" of awareness, unable to think beyond the here-and-now? So I got up and began touching books on the bookshelf, opening cupboards and trying to decide if I was dreaming. Eventually I went into the kitchen and found Pete cooking a roast dinner at 7am. Bingo! The logic bomb went off.

After that I ran out the front door and took to the skies. I flew above my neighborhood and jumped between rooftops. Then I got really nosey and started going into people's houses to see what my fellow dream characters were up to.

False awakenings can very often lead to lucid dreams IF you practice doing a reality check every time you wake up. Although as you can see from this example, it isn't always straightforward. Flase awakenings are also more common if you practice lucid dreaming, although regular dreamers have them too on occasion. They are not usually disturbing although the sheer intensity and realism can shake you up a bit when you finally wake up, and some people describe have multiple false awakenings on the trot. But all in all I think they're good experiences - especially if they mean more lucid dreams.

So what's your weirdest false awakening? And how do you usually convert them into LDs?

I don't know if this is my weirdest but it was certainly interesting. It is recorded in my journal for Saturday, March 1, 2008.

I had used the rhythm napping method. I got up at 3am, read about lucid dreaming for an hour and then went to my youngest son's bed because he was away at a sleep over. I heard the beep of the timer while I was dreaming but just stayed with the dream. Then I had a false awakening:

I hear a "radio", like last time, I listen carefully to ascertain whether it's real or dreamt. It appears to make sense. It's Triple J and the music is something familiar but I don't know what it's called. (There is, however, no radio in my son's room). I fumble around trying to hit the snooze button.

Lourdes, a girl from work, comes into the room playing classical guitar. It doesn't sound bad. I don't question her presence. Now Simon, another colleague, sits near me on the bed and I show him what I'm writing in my dream diary. It's the dream I've just finished having:

My "mother" is giving me new clothes. They're tops of different designs and I really love them.Some are long-sleeved and some short-sleeved. They're in patterns and plains and in a range of colours. I'm amazed that all this is for me and the other "children" are similarly endowed. "Mother"is a large, brown-skinned woman. "Father's" name is "Gustav". I explain to S that this is a pun for"Good stuff." I ask father where we got the money for all the new clothes and he says it's becausewe traded away the old stuff.

Now I'm writing "Gustav" on my husband's neck or head - he shaves his head. (I think this is because I saw him write a reminder on his hand earlier in the day). It's now that I attain lucidity. I'm not sure if the timer beeped or not.

The dream scene disappears and I'm in blackness. I don't want to waste the opportunity like I did last time. I lie still within myself but I feel urgency to act so I will myself out of body and begin to float upwards. There's something wrong with my attitude, though. It's not fear but lack of confidence in my ability to succeed. Sure enough, I slam back.

My later dreams continue the motifs of wealth, luxury, gifts, abundance and groups of people with a party atmosphere.

Why this was an interesting experience was that by August I was hearing news about Hurricane Gustav threatening New Orleans.

Nothing too strange has happened in any of my FA's, and I haven't yet successfully turned any into a lucid dream.

I'll post two stories:

1. I wake up and wander out to the kitchen to get some coffee. I grab a mug, set it on the stove, and begin pouring. I have the pot directly above my mug, and yet none of it will actually go in the mug. It defies all physics and spills anywhere but the side, despite falling in a straight line.I didn't actually remember this one until I got up and poured some coffee and thought "Haven't I done this already...?"

2. I wake up, shut off my alarm, and lay still to remember my dreams from the previous night. I can remember one small fragment, and attempt to recall more before moving. Nothing comes to mind, so I grab my dream journal and a pen and scribble them down. Writing brings more memories, and I finish writing two more complete dreams.Then I wake up.I had a good laugh at myself and went to write down my dreams, since I was able to remember them...and they were gone. I should have done a reality check before writing anything.

That's an interesting thing about dream recall, sometimes you can get "forgotten" flashes from dreams of the night before when you're talking about random things the next day.

The strangest thing is, when my head hits the pillow each night, I get flashes of my dreams from the previous night. Like the action of getting into bed triggers the memory although I'm not really sure why........

When I was little, my mom always woke me up. She did so by yelling from down the stairs (was sleeping in our third floor atm) but this one time when she yelled, i woke up, walked down the stairs, showered and even went to school, before my mom woke me up again - and when she did, the same procedure happened. And it happened again, and again 6times before i finally realized that this were going nowwhere and woke myself up once and for all, and started my day.

I think i must've been so tired, that when my mom woke me up, i would just fall back to sleep, continued by conciously waking up in my bed - inside my dream.

I found it really funny, and i still laugh when i think about it (even though it was many years in the past)

I have never gotten any of those scary false awakenings though, which i am greatful for.

ive only experienced false awakening once, but it was definitely a weird one.

i woke up in my room and my computer was in a different place, but i didn't really think about it a lot. then i walked down the hallway to the bathroom, and the bathroom just wasn't there.(there was just a wall where the door should be) id never experienced it before, and i was freaked out, then i realized i was still dreaming, and then i woke up for real ( i thought) i woke up in my room (again) and the light was coming in through the window and everything was in its normal place, and i walked down the hallway to the bathroom, but the living room ( which is near the bathroom) was dark and weird and the vacuum from our old house (which i haven't seen in years) was there and the whole room was a mess. i quickly realized this was another dream and i woke myself up again (you guessed it) into another dream. this one seemed less real that the other two, because my computer was kinda oblongly shaped and the room was kinda purple-ish , so i woke up again, and it was the real world. i lay in my bed for a long time cuz i didn't want to get up and find out it was a dream. but then i just kept looking around and realized everything was fine.

it was a really weird experience that i don't want to repeat. i felt like id never wake up for real

I have a method of reality checks that work very good for me. An example of how I use them is this.

Throughout the days of everyones lives, there are always those random moments when you just feel weird for no reason at all... You could feel like you are being watched, you feel a tingle in your spine, or just feel weird because something just doesnt seem right...

I always do reality checks at these times because I figured, "Hey, if dreams are weird, then why dont I just do reality checks in real life whenever weird stuff happens?"

When I have false awakenings I usually wake up on a camp bed next to my bed on the floor. At first I don't think anything is wrong, I'll go downstairs to make breakfast and notice that everything in my house is in the wrong place. I'll realise it's a false awakening and then wake up into another false awakening, and then another and another. After about 4 of these I'll become lucid, get out of bed, take a step back, then run at my window full speed, smash through the glass and fly over my neighbour hood. I usually don't get very far until I land on a roof then I'll falsely wake up again. Sometimes I go into the road and jump over busses and houses with a kind of moon physics sensation. Other times I'll look at the clock to see what time it is and the whole room will melt away.All in all if I'm having false awakenings it usually takes about 20 of them until I'm actually awake.It's fun for the first 10, after that it can get a bit annoying.